The Inspector McKay Series Books One to Three: Candles and Roses, Death Parts Us, and Their Final Act

By Alex Walters

In these three crime thrillers set in the Scottish Highlands, DI Alec McKay hunts down killers and grapples with his own tragic past.

Candles and Roses
When bodies start appearing on the Scottish Black Isle—each with roses and candles placed around it—Det. Inspector Alec McKay search for a pattern behind the twisted killings.

Death Part Us
When a retired cop is murdered on a remote Scottish Isle, Det. Inspector Alec McKay must dig into the man’s corrupt past—a past that involves McKay himself.

Their Final Act
A killer is targeting washed-up entertainers—all of whom are connected to past allegations of sexual assault—and Det. Inspector Alec McKay believes there’s one final victim to go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781913682910

Alex Walters

Bette Bao Lord based her acclaimed middle grade novel In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson largely on the days when she herself was a newcomer to the United States. She is also the author of Spring Moon, nominated for the American Book Award for First Novel, and Eighth Moon.

Book preview

The Inspector McKay Cases

Books 1 -3

Alex Walters

Bloodhound Books

Bloodhound Books

Contents

Candles and Roses

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Acknowledgments

Death Parts Us

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Acknowledgments

Their Final Act

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Also by Alex Walters

Candles and Roses

Copyright © 2016 Alex Walters

The right of Alex Walters to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2016 by Bloodhound Books

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

www.bloodhoundbooks.com

ISBN: 978-0-9955111-9-4

Created with Vellum Created with Vellum

To Helen – for everything.

1

It was starting to rain and she was feeling well and truly pissed off.

Where the bloody hell was the cab?

She should have waited inside. She could always have locked up the bar herself if Josh was so keen to get off. But she knew Josh wasn’t comfortable leaving her with the keys. It wasn’t that he doubted her honesty, or so he said. It was just that the owners had given him the responsibility and—well, you know. Yeah, she knew. Josh was the manager and he wanted everyone to be clear about that. Well, fair enough. If anything went wrong, it would be Josh’s arse on the line and not hers.

So she’d agreed to wait out here so Josh could bugger off home. And she hadn’t realised that her phone was out of battery. Now she was locked out on the street with a dead phone and no sign of the sodding taxi she’d ordered. A perfect end to a perfect bloody day.

She didn’t even know for sure what time it was. Long after midnight now, obviously. She’d called from the bar before leaving and been told the car was ten minutes away, max. How long ago had that been? A lot more than ten minutes, anyway.

The road was almost deserted at this time of the night and she peered hopefully at every passing car. There were several cabs, but no sign of the familiar logo of the company she always used when she was working the late shift. Christ, she ought to be a favoured customer by now, not just another punter to leave standing in the pouring rain.

She contemplated walking home, but it was nearly a mile and the rain was coming harder. In any case, the reason she always booked a taxi was because she hated walking home at this time of night. Unless she took a lengthy detour, the route took her through a largely unlit stretch of parkland. She’d heard from one of the other girls that, a year or two before, there’d been a spate of sexual assaults in the area. She didn’t know how much truth there was in that but it was enough to make her cautious. She’d decided early on that, if she was working late, she could justify the expense of a taxi home, even though it would eat into her already small earnings.

That was, of course, as long as the bloody taxi turned up.

For the moment, at least, she was dry, sheltered under the bar’s garish front awning. But it was bloody cold. This was supposed to be the start of summer but after a few misleadingly bright days in early May they’d had nothing but grey skies and rain for weeks. She’d caught the TV weather forecast that morning. Back up north, in the place that, even after everything that had happened, she still somehow thought of as home, they were having some of their best early summer weather in years. Wasn’t that just bloody typical?

She was still deciding whether to cut her losses and risk the walk when a car pulled up at the kerbside. For a moment, she thought it was the taxi but there was no logo. In any case, she realised now, it was just some superficially tarted-up junk-heap. Kids.

The driver’s window wound down and a pimply face peered out. ‘How much, love?’ She could hear raucous laughter from the rear of the car. Drunken kids.

‘Oh, just fuck off,’ she said.

‘Whatever you’re charging, love, it’s not worth it.’ The youth guffawed at his own wit and then slammed down the accelerator and pulled back out into the road, tyres spinning on the wet surface.

That was enough to decide her.

She had no umbrella but she turned up the collar of her thin coat and stepped outside into the rain. She’d be soaked by the time she got home. Even so, it felt better than being jeered at on the street by some spotty-faced idiot teenager.

She’d walked less than fifty metres when she saw another vehicle approaching. She squinted at it, the rain dripping from her hair, hoping it might finally be the cab. But it was only a small unmarked van. It passed and then, seconds later, she heard it pull into the kerb behind her. A voice called: ‘Katy?’

She turned, baffled. The van’s passenger door was half open and a figure was peering out, leaning over from the driver’s seat. ‘It is you, isn’t it? Katy? Katy Scott?’

She was even more confused now. How had the driver known her name? She took a step or two nearer to the van, trying to recognise the figure looking back at her.

‘Jesus, Katy, I thought I was seeing things. What are the odds? After all these years.’

She knew now, though it didn’t make it any easier to believe. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘What you doing in these parts?’

‘Ach, you know. Work things. Usual story. What about you?’

She gestured back towards the bar. ‘I work in there. Just heading home. Ordered a taxi but the bastard never turned up.’

‘You can’t walk home in the rain. Let me give you a lift.’

‘You’re going the other way,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t—’

‘It can’t be far if you were going to walk it. I’d never forgive myself if I left you standing in the rain at this time of night. Anyway, we can have a blether for a few minutes. Catch up. We can maybe arrange to meet up properly sometime. I’m down here plenty.’

‘Well, if you’re sure—’ She was already walking towards the van, cheered by this unexpected late-night miracle.

She pulled open the passenger door and climbed inside. Almost immediately, she felt she’d made a mistake, though she couldn’t have said why. ‘Look, I don’t know—’

It was too late. Even as she clawed frantically at the car door, a hand was clamped firmly across her mouth, the full weight of the driver’s body pressing her back into the seat. Something wet was being pressed between her lips, and the stench was unbearable, acrid and burning in her throat. Her skin felt as if it had been doused in acid.

Her first thought, even as the hand pressed tighter across her mouth, was that she was going to vomit. Her second was that she was going to die.

And then there was just darkness and nothing. And no time for any further thoughts.

2

No-one had ever called DI Alec McKay a sentimental man. But even now, a year on, he remained troubled by the case, and not only because it had never been formally closed.

Occasionally, in a rare quiet hour, he dug out the file and thumbed aimlessly through the thin sheaf of documents, as if hoping to spot some lead, some connection that had eluded them at the time. There was nothing, of course. He’d end up staring blankly at that scanned image, the gaunt face, the pale blue eyes staring smilingly into the camera, the corona of blonde hair caught by the sun, a carefree moment snatched out of time. Lizzie Hamilton.

On the face of it, just another missing person. They couldn’t even be certain that a crime had necessarily been committed. It was possible, but it was equally possible she’d just chosen to escape, to re-boot her life in another place, with new friends, new surroundings. McKay found that almost the more disturbing possibility.

She’d vanished at the end of June, midsummer. And last year for once they’d actually had something of a summer, three or four weeks of half-decent weather. Unclouded skies translucent through the long light evenings, the temperatures high by local standards, the sea a deep blue along the Moray Firth.

Nobody had missed her for a couple of days, which told its own story. She’d worked three or four evenings a week in a bar up in the Black Isle, did some cleaning and housekeeping for the holiday lets around Fortrose and Rosemarkie. She was friendly with the regulars in the bar, but no-one knew much about her. It had been Denny Gorman, the pub landlord, who’d contacted the police. He’d been the only person who expressed any interest in her private life, and McKay had assumed that was just because Gorman had secretly had the hots for her.

It was another couple of weeks before they finally registered her as a misper. McKay had insisted on being there when they gained entry to her rented bungalow, having secured a spare key from the landlord’s agent. He’d been tense beforehand, not knowing what to expect. He’d had more than one experience of walking into the stench of death in some lonely bedsit, a decomposing body in a bed or on the floor.

But the bungalow seemed in good order, as if Hamilton had tidied the place before leaving. It was sparsely furnished, with only a few signs of a personal touch, but there was no indication of any disturbance or anything missing. There was milk and food left in the fridge, clothes in the wardrobes, a half-read chick-lit novel splayed on the table in the sitting room. If Lizzie Hamilton had done a runner, she’d left most of her current life behind.

They tracked down her widowed father living in Inverness, but she had no siblings or other close relatives. McKay had driven over himself to visit the father. For no particular reason, he’d expected someone frail and elderly. But the father, one John Robbins, was a well-built man in his mid-fifties who looked as if he worked out. He was living in a decent Edwardian semi on the south side of the city and gave the impression that he’d made a bob or two, one way or another. He greeted McKay on the doorstep, showing no intention of inviting him inside. He was wearing tight black jeans and tee-shirt that no doubt had designer labels inside and which seemed intended to show off his toned physique. He was bearded, his greying hair caught back in a short ponytail. Some sort of wheeler-dealer, McKay thought dismissively, too keen to hang on to his receding youth.

‘Police?’ Robbins said, unimpressed, when McKay had brandished his warrant card. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘Your daughter, Mr Robbins. We’re trying to track her down.’ In other circumstances, McKay might have been tempted to insist on going inside, but he’d already formed the view that Robbins would have little or nothing to tell him. ‘She seems to have gone missing.’

‘That one went missing ten years back,’ Robbins said. ‘Not seen her since.’

‘You’ve no knowledge of her whereabouts?’

‘God knows. Dundee? Aberdeen? Back in Glasgow. You tell me.’ Robbins took a breath. ‘On second thoughts, don’t bother.’

‘You weren’t on good terms with your daughter, Mr Robbins?’

‘I can see why you’re a detective.’

‘Any particular reason for the bad blood?’

‘Every reason. She was trouble. Took advantage every chance she had. Walked off with half my worldly goods. What more do you want?’

‘She was your daughter, Mr Robbins.’

‘So they say.’

He got nothing more from Robbins. But it seemed Lizzie Hamilton had made a habit of disappearing. She’d walked out on her father—taking his wallet and various items with her, as he’d said—and headed down to Glasgow with her then boyfriend, Kenny Hamilton. They’d married within weeks and split up acrimoniously a couple of months later. Again, she’d walked out without a word and Kenny Hamilton reckoned he hadn’t seen her since. He’d no idea what had happened to her, and no-one seemed to know what she’d been doing or where she’d been living till she’d arrived back up in the Highlands three or four years later. If he’d put the effort in, McKay might have been able to trace her movements over that period, but resources were scarce and, whatever McKay’s own feelings, the case had never been the highest priority.

When they were able to check Lizzie Hamilton’s bank account, they discovered that she’d withdrawn all £200 of her painstakingly accrued savings a few days before her disappearance. There were only a few pounds left in the account, and no attempts had been made to access it since.

Over the previous weeks, at least as far as the regulars in the bar could judge, she’d been her usual self. Cheerful enough, friendly, chatting amiably with the regulars, but as private and reserved as ever. She’d rarely talked about her private life, and had given no indication that anything might be troubling her. But then, McKay thought, people don’t always need a reason.

Maybe it was as simple as that. She’d come up here to start a new life, but life hadn’t come running to greet her. Perhaps she’d simply grown tired of the endless round of work and sleep. Perhaps she’d wanted more. He could imagine her, walking along the sea shore, staring out at the clear sky and the blue waters of the Moray Firth and the North Sea beyond, thinking that there must be something else out there. Something she could aspire to.

The summer weeks had dragged by, and no further leads or clues had emerged. The last time she’d been seen was at a housekeeping visit to one of the holiday lets the weekend before her disappearance. One of the assistants at the local Co-op thought he might have served her on the Monday, but couldn’t be sure. If he had, she’d paid cash, as no credit or debit card transactions were recorded to her name. They’d checked the CCTV in the store as well as elsewhere in the village, but could find no images of her in the relevant period. They’d been unable to trace her mobile phone and no calls had been made from its number since she’d left. None of her neighbours could recall when they’d last seen her but that wasn’t unusual, they said. She’d never been what you’d call sociable.

McKay had made routine contact with the relevant missing persons agencies and with his colleagues in the larger cities and towns. They’d checked the local hospitals. That image—the picture that still sat in the front of the file—had been sent to all parties. Nothing had come back.

It still seemed extraordinary to McKay that, in the modern world, anyone could simply disappear. He felt tracked and trailed every minute of his waking life, always conscious of the countless surveillance tools that, for good or ill, were now simply part of the landscape. But people vanished every day. They stepped off the grid, sometimes by choice, sometimes by accident, occasionally for sinister reasons. And it was easiest for people like this, with no ties, no obligations, no reasons to stay.

Even so, aspects of the case made McKay uneasy. Lizzie Hamilton had made no effort to cancel the tenancy on her bungalow or to contact the utility companies. The fridge had contained perishable food bought in the days immediately before her disappearance. She had left behind a number of apparently personal items, though admittedly nothing of great value. She’d had no car, and there’d been no sightings of her on the local buses or records of her booking a taxi to leave the village.

But as the weeks went by the case, which had never been a high priority to begin with, inevitably slipped further down the list. McKay had half-expected that eventually she might reappear, one way or another, alive or dead. Her body would be discovered, lost in woodland or washed up by the tide, the victim of an accident or something worse. Or she’d simply return one day from wherever she’d been and resume her humdrum life in the village. Maybe she’d be tracked down, living back down in Glasgow or here in Inverness.

But it never happened. When her rent direct debit bounced for the second time, the property company foreclosed on the tenancy and repossessed the property. As far as McKay knew, it was still standing empty. The owners of the holiday lets found new housekeepers. Denny Gorman no doubt found himself a new barmaid to lust after. Life ground slowly onwards.

And every once in a while, McKay would pull out the file and sit staring at that scanned image. Not even a particularly good likeness, he’d been told, and clearly taken a few years before she’d arrived up here.

But it was a good likeness, he thought.

Of another young woman. Another lost soul.

Another Lizzie.

His own daughter.

3

‘Just five minutes.’

‘I know your five minutes, Greg. And I know what you can get up to in five minutes.’

‘Aw, come on. We’ve got time.’

‘I’ve told you, I don’t like it. Place gives me the creeps.’

‘Ach. Just a wee walk. Breath of fresh air. Blow the cobwebs away.’

‘You sound like my mother. And it’s not blowing cobwebs that you’re interested in.’

Greg Johnson laughed, but said nothing more as he pulled off the road down the short track to the makeshift car park. It was a Monday morning in midsummer, but theirs was the only car there. Other people had more sense, she thought. They came here only if they were desperate. Even more desperate than Greg, she added to herself, as she noted his eagerness to leave the car.

She knew well enough what was on his mind, and in truth she wasn’t exactly averse to the idea herself. Christ knew, they got little enough time together. It would be different come the autumn when they both went off to university.

She just didn’t want to come here. The place really did freak her out. She should be used to it by now. It was just part of the landscape, and she’d been walking round there more times than she could remember. But every time she felt the same frisson, the same sense that the place wasn’t quite right.

‘Fancy a quick walk, then?’ he said.

‘A quick what?’ She laughed. ‘Yeah, go on then, loverboy. But straight into the woods. Not up there.’ She glanced behind them to where the low hill rose gloomily above the car park, a dark tangle of trees endlessly festooned with strips of fabric and items of clothing, some new, some long-faded, fluttering in the summer breeze like the banners of a defeated army.

They both knew the story of the Clootie Well. A Celtic place of pilgrimage, a running stream with supposedly health-giving properties. People still came here when their friends or relatives were unwell, tying pieces of cloth—sometimes wiped on the skin of the invalid in question—to the trees around the stream. The theory was that as the fabric rotted away the illness would dissipate. No doubt some people believed it enough to make it work.

It was a harmless piece of superstition, and these days, for most people, the place was no more than a quaint tourist attraction. Somewhere the summer trippers visited on their way to their holiday lets on the Black Isle, traipsing along the paths, chattering patronisingly about the gullibility of the locals. While, in some cases, no doubt stopping to attach their own votive offerings, just in case.

Even so, the place disturbed Kelly. It was partly the disparate and often poignant nature of the offerings. Nearer the stream, it wasn’t just shreds of cloth. It might be baby clothes, old stuffed toys, football scarves or shirts. Things that had belonged to real, identifiable human beings, left here in a last, desperate hope that the act might cure a terminal disease, remove a cancer, allow a child to live beyond her first birthday. Kelly assumed the magic would mostly have failed. That the former owner of the rotting teddy-bear or the faded Caley shirt would be long since dead. For Kelly, the place was infested by ghosts, the spirits of those who clung on, earthbound by their last dregs of hope, watching as the worthless waters poured endlessly down the wooded hillside.

Well, she thought, as she followed Greg into the woods, he might be in the mood but she certainly wasn’t. Not now, not in this place. Still, maybe five minutes in the company of Greg’s caressing hands might be enough to change her mind. Even before they’d become an item, she’d found him attractive—well, for a Scotsman, anyway, she added to herself. Most of the lads at the Academy had been all ginger hair and freckles. Greg was more the tall, dark and brooding type, or at least that was the image he tried to cultivate, with his swept-back black hair and incipient stubble. He was probably aiming for a cross between Heathcliff and William Wallace.

She glanced behind her and then, allowing herself a smile at her own thoughts, she ran ahead of him into the shade of the trees. He jogged behind her, laughing.

It was a fine sunny day, one of the best they’d had so far this year, and it was relatively warm even in the woodland. Greg led them off the footpath, tramping through the undergrowth until they were out of sight of any potential passers-by. ‘Well, here we are.’

‘We seem to be.’ She threw herself against him with sufficient force to knock him off his feet. He stumbled, regained balance, and then allowed himself to fall sideways into the thick heather, pulling Kelly down with him. They lay for a moment, looking up at the dappled sky through the shifting leaves, listening to the rustle of the breeze. Greg rolled over and kissed her, gently at first, then more hungrily.

She responded enthusiastically, enjoying the feel of his firm body against hers, conscious of his arousal and finding that, whatever her earlier feelings, she was beginning to share it. They kissed for a while, losing themselves in each other. Finally coming up for air, she said: ‘It’s good to have some time together. Just the two of us.’

He rolled over, peering through the grass. ‘It is. It’ll be even better when we’re at uni. As much time together as we want.’

‘I think we’re expected to do some work as well.’

‘I suppose. We can fit it in between the bouts of rampant sex.’

‘It’ll need careful scheduling.’

‘We’ll be very organised.’ He began to turn himself back towards her, and then he paused, staring along the rough ground. ‘What’s that?’

‘What’s what?’

‘That. There.’ He sat up and pointed. She hoisted herself up and sat beside him, trying to follow the direction of his gesturing.

At first, she could make out nothing but the rough undergrowth. Then, between two thorn bushes, she saw what he was indicating. Evenly distributed blurs of colour, something crimson.

‘Flowers?’

‘I don’t know. It looks very neat, if it’s just something growing wild.’ He climbed to his feet and took a step or two forward. It was typical of Greg, she thought. Lost in the throes of passion, but it took only the mildest tug of curiosity to drag his mind, if not necessarily his body, elsewhere. It was one of the qualities she found endearing. ‘Think you’re right, though. It is flowers. Looks like roses. Weird.’ He walked forward another few steps. ‘Jesus. What is that? Come and have a look.’

Reluctantly, she stumbled after him. ‘What is it?’

‘Look. There.’

It was a line of alternating candlesticks and small black vases, positioned some fifty centimetres from each other. Each candlestick contained an unlit candle and each vase was filled with cut red roses. As she moved closer, Kelly realised there were two parallel lines, each comprising three identical vases and two candles, with a further vase positioned between the lines at the two ends to form a rectangle. It took her a moment to realise what the arrangement resembled.

A grave.

It was the right size, she thought. The size of a human body.

‘Jesus,’ Greg said. ‘What is it?’ She could see the same thought had struck him.

‘Somebody’s idea of a joke?’

‘Strange joke. Some sort of installation piece, you reckon? On the short list for the Turner prize?’ He was talking too quickly, more rattled than he was letting on. Kelly realised that both of them had been glancing involuntarily around, as if someone might be observing them. ‘Maybe we’re being filmed for some TV programme?’

‘Greg.’ Kelly had moved ahead of him, conscious of Greg’s reluctance to approach the vases. She was a few metres away, staring down.

‘What?’

‘Look at this.’ She pointed to the grassed area between the vases. The turf had been cut into several sections and then had been lifted and, slightly unevenly, replaced. As a result, the surface was raised above the surrounding grassland, although the difference was partly obscured by the positioning of the candles and vases.

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. But she had a growing feeling she knew all too well. Greg had moved past her now, embarrassed at his own previous trepidation. He crouched down to pull at one of the sections of turf.

‘Greg—’

It was too late. He’d already dragged back the heavy lump of earth and was staring at what lay beneath. Kelly turned her head away, unable to look.

‘Jesus,’ Greg said. ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’

4

‘Right,’ McKay said. ‘Let me explain how you should handle it.’

DC Josh Carlisle, a young fresh-faced figure who looked to McKay as if he might have bunked off school for the afternoon, nodded earnestly. ‘That would be good, sir.’

‘You don’t need to call me sir. Boss will do.’ McKay stretched back in his chair, chewing on his habitual gum with the air of a man enjoying an after-dinner cigar. ‘It’s like this. What you should do is tell him to fuck off. Then tell him to fuck off some more. And then to fuck off a bit more still. And then to keep on fucking off until he gets back where he started. Then you can tell him to fuck off again.’ He paused. ‘Is that clear?’

Carlisle blinked. ‘Crystal, sir. I mean, boss. Thank you.’

‘Always glad to be of assistance. Door’s always open.’ McKay gestured towards the door in question, in a manner clearly intended to indicate the meeting was over. Carlisle took the hint and rose to take his leave, stopping as he saw DCI Helena Grant standing in the doorway. She was a slightly stocky woman of no more than average height, but like most of his colleagues Carlisle found her more intimidating than any of her male counterparts. She was gazing at them now with the air of a teacher watching two over-excited schoolboys.

‘Alec giving you one of his motivational team talks?’

‘Something like that.’ Carlisle shuffled past her and, with visible relief, made his escape.

‘Good lad,’ McKay said. ‘Will go far.’

‘As far as possible from you if he’s any sense. What was that about?’

‘Some scrote of an informant looking to screw a few more quid out of us.’

‘Fair enough. In that case, I fully endorse your proposed approach.’ She lowered herself on to the chair opposite McKay’s desk. The building was too old to accommodate the open-plan offices now commonplace in most of their locations, and McKay shared this room only with his DS, Ginny Horton. Grant assumed it was Horton who kept the office in order, although McKay could be surprisingly domesticated when it suited him. ‘How are you doing with the burglaries?’ There had been a spate of apparently linked house-breakings in the estates off Glenurquhart Road.

‘Ach. You know. Making progress.’

‘Is that McKay-speak for getting nowhere?’

‘It’s McKay-speak for working our balls off but apparently still not doing enough to get your arse off the line. With respect,’ he added.

Grant didn’t rise to the bait. She and McKay went back a long way, and despite McKay’s best efforts they’d always managed to maintain a more or less effective working relationship. ‘I’m here because we’ve just had a big one called in.’ She smiled. ‘But don’t worry if you’re too busy. I can find someone else.’

For the first time, McKay looked genuinely interested. ‘A big one?’

‘Murder, looks like. Body up on the Black Isle. Bit strange.’

‘Aye, well, they’re an odd lot up there.’

‘You know the Clootie Well, up by Munlochy?’

‘You’ve proved my point. Worshipping the fairies. That where they found the body?’

‘In the woods there. Shallow grave. Young woman, not yet identified. From the state of decomposition, it looks like she’s not been there long. A few days.’

‘I like my corpses fresh,’ McKay said. ‘So what’s strange about it?’

‘The grave was marked. Candles and vases of red roses. The sort of flowers you take home to Chrissie when you’ve something to apologise for.’

‘In her dreams. Who the fuck murders someone and then sticks flowers on the grave?’

‘Someone who cares about the victim? I don’t know. That’ll be your job.’

‘Oh, Christ, I knew that was coming. You want me to be SIO?’

She laughed. ‘Come off it, Alec. You’d be pissed as hell if I gave the job to anyone else.’

‘Aye, well. Maybe. But you know how stretched we are.’

She sighed. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Aw, thanks, pet,’ he said. ‘In that case, your wish is my command.’ He paused. ‘Or at least it will be if you give those sodding burglaries to some other poor bastard.’

* * *

McKay was a short wiry man. With his close-cropped greying hair and generally belligerent expression, he looked like a textbook illustration of a chippy Scotsman. He knew that and made a point of living up to the image whenever he thought it might be useful. He was a Dundonian by background, but most people assumed he was a ned from Glasgow. He didn’t bother to disabuse them of the idea. Better be thought a streetwise metropolitan than a turnip-eating provincial. He had a university education, too, but didn’t advertise the fact. On the whole, people underestimated Alec McKay and he was happy to keep it that way.

He and DS Ginny Horton made a disconcerting couple, but again McKay liked it like that. Horton was English—fucking English, to use McKay’s standard phraseology—small, neat, anonymously pretty, with tidily bobbed dark hair and an amicable smile. Someone who, in McKay’s words, looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her arse. He knew from experience that that wasn’t the whole picture, either.

‘I don’t take the Munlochy turn, then?’ He’d asked her to drive so he could relax and concentrate on making disparaging remarks about how badly she was doing it.

McKay shook his head. ‘No. Best carry on up the A9 to the Tore roundabout, then take the Black Isle road from there. It’s before you get to Munlochy. On the right.’

She knew the area fairly well by now. At the weekend, she and her partner would sometimes drive over to Cromarty or Rosemarkie for a walk by the sea or to grab a bite at one of the cafes. But she normally took the more southerly route up through Munlochy, and the Clootie Well was a new one to her. ‘What is this place?’

‘Somewhere people go to worship the old gods.’ He winced at what he saw as the endless gullibility of humankind. ‘It’s a stream, basically. People hang up bits of cloth belonging to sick relatives so they’ll recover.'

She allowed him to finish his diatribe. ‘You think there’s any significance to the body being left there?’

‘I don’t imagine the killer thought she’d recover through the healing power of the well, if that’s what you mean. Maybe the body was intended as some kind of offering. Perhaps that’s the significance of the roses. Or maybe Helena’s right and the killer did care about the victim. Placed the body there to make some kind of amends.’

‘Must have gone to some trouble with the roses and candles,’ Horton said. ‘If you were burying a body, you’d think you’d want to get it done with as quickly as possible.’

‘From what they’ve said, it’s a fair way from the road. You could bank on not being interrupted if you were doing it overnight. I’m not aware the doggers have taken to hanging out at the Clootie Well just yet, and I can’t think of anyone else likely to drop by. And this time of year it’s not even dark for that long, so you could see what you were doing. But, aye, it shows a certain dedication.’

They were heading down the A832, the main road into the Black Isle. The place was, as the locals said, neither black nor an isle. It was a peninsular protruding out into the North Sea, north of Inverness, bordered on three sides by the Moray, Beauly and Cromarty Firths. No-one seemed to know why it had been called ‘black’. Possibly because of its mild local climate which left the area relatively snow and frost free compared with its Highland neighbours. McKay preferred to think it was on account of the unenlightened heathens who inhabited the place.

After a mile or so, McKay gestured for Horton to slow down, pointing out the turning for the Clootie Well. The entrance was draped with police tape, a more formal echo of the festoons of fabric on the trees beyond. As they turned in, an ambulance was pulling out, presumably taking the body off to the mortuary.

Horton slowed to greet the uniformed officer controlling the entrance, waving her warrant card out of the window. ‘DS Horton and DI McKay,’ she said.

McKay leaned across from the passenger seat. ‘Morning, Murray. You’re not planning to delay us, are you?’

The police officer squinted into the car. ‘Alec, I wouldn’t delay you if my life depended on it. Which it probably would.’ He unhooked the tape and waved them past.

Horton parked next to the white scene of crime van, and they climbed out into the late-morning sunshine. There was a marked car closer to the roadside, which presumably belonged to Murray and his colleague. McKay noted that the car was occupied, and he walked over and tapped on the window.

The passenger seat was occupied by another PC, a red-faced, slightly overweight figure who gazed benignly up at McKay. ‘You’ve copped this one, then, Alec? Thought you would.’

‘Just lucky, I guess, Russ. Who’s in the back seat?’

Russ twisted in his seat and looked at the young couple sitting awkwardly in the rear of the car. ‘The two poor wee buggers who stumbled across the body. I thought you’d want to talk to them before they left, and they graciously agreed to hang around. That right, kids?’

‘You listen to Uncle Russ,’ McKay said, peering into the interior of the car. ‘Thanks for staying, you two. Not that Russ will have given you a choice. We’ll need to take formal statements from you in due course, but in the meantime I’d appreciate an informal chat while your memories are still fresh.’ He noted the paleness of their skin, the blank look in their eyes. ‘I’m sure it’s been a shock,’ he added. ‘I need to take a look at the site first, but I’ll be as quick as I can.’

‘You sounded almost human there,’ Horton said, a few minutes later, as they were tramping through the woodland.

‘Aye, well. Don’t tell anyone, will you?’

Up ahead, through the trees, they could see the two white-suited crime scene examiners walking back towards the car park. McKay waved, and one of them walked over. ‘Morning, Alec. Why am I not surprised to see your ugly mug here?’

‘Because there’s a job that needs doing properly, I’m guessing. How it’s going?’

‘All done. Trust you to turn up when the party’s over.’ Jock Henderson was a tall, angular man who looked as if his centre of gravity was too far from the ground. McKay wondered where they found protective suits to fit him. He had a slightly shambolic air, but was good enough at his job.

‘Just in time to pick up the bill,’ McKay agreed. ‘Story of my fucking life. So what’s the story?’

‘Young girl. I’d say early to mid twenties, but the doc will no doubt confirm. No obvious signs of physical trauma, but I’d say she’d been asphyxiated. Suffocated, maybe. Dark hair. Five three. Slim built to the point of being skinny. Couple of tattoos which might be of use to you, though they look like fairly off-the-shelf designs to me. A dove and some sort of butterfly design.’

‘Any other ID?’

‘Nothing. She was naked. No other possessions as far as we can find. We’ll have to see if her fingerprints or DNA are on the database.’

‘How long you reckon she’d been here?’

‘Not long, I’d say. Few days. There were some signs of decomposition, but not a great deal. Mind you, the weather’s been bloody chilly at night, so you’ll have to wait on the doc for a definite view.’

‘What about these candles and roses, then?’

‘Christ knows. There are some funny bastards about, right enough. We’ve bagged them up and stuck them in the van as evidence. God knows what we’ll get from them.’

‘Greenfly, probably. Still, you can take a bunch home to the missus, Jock. Save having to stop off at the petrol station next time you fuck up.’

‘You’re still as funny as a turd in a single malt, Alec. But we love you that way.’

‘Aye, so I understand. How long for the report?’

‘As soon as possible, Alec. You know that.’

‘Quicker than that, Jock. You know me.’

Henderson gave a mock bow. ‘Your wish is my command, oh mighty one. Now piss off and let me get on.’

McKay laughed and continued past Henderson up the track towards the woodland, Horton following behind. A few moments later, they reached the spot where the body had been found. It was a clearing, with relatively thick woodland surrounding it. The turf had been lifted and piled in one corner, and the hollow of the burial place was exposed.

‘What do you reckon?’ McKay asked without turning round.

‘It’s remote enough, I suppose,’ Horton said. ‘Can’t imagine there’d be much risk of being disturbed here overnight. Would have taken a while to remove the turf, but not that long to dig the grave itself.’ She crouched down by the hollow, running a trickle of earth through her fingers. ‘Ground’s dry and pretty loose. Wouldn’t have taken long to dig this out. Take it from a gardener.’

‘I’ll bow to your superior knowledge.’ He looked around. ‘Assume the killer wanted the body to be found?’

‘The roses suggest it wasn’t intended to be hidden for long, anyway,’ she said. ‘Plenty of people go walking round here. It was likely that someone would spot it. Although it would have been less conspicuous once the roses died.’

‘And why here? It all looks very carefully planned. Just a conveniently remote spot, or does it have some significance?’

‘I saw the strips of cloth as we drove in,’ Horton said. ‘Weird.’

‘Very weird,’ McKay agreed. ‘But it’s just superstition. And if people are desperate enough—if their loved ones are ill or dying—they’ll give anything a shot.’

‘Careful, Alec,’ she said. ‘You’re in danger of sounding human again.’

‘Aye, you’re right. The place must be getting to me. Let’s go back and have a blether with those two youngsters instead.’

5

‘I’ve really got to go soon,’ Jo said, conscious she was already struggling to form the words.

‘You can’t go yet,’ Dave—or was it Pete?—said. ‘Thought we were set to make a night of it.’ He looked genuinely downcast, but she knew that was because he’d had more on his mind than just heading off to a nightclub. She wondered momentarily whether she should invite him back with her now, just to put him out of his misery. But, drunk as she was, she took another look at his doughy overweight face and rejected the idea as quickly as it had entered her head. She didn’t even fancy him. He was just a bit of company, part of a group she’d latched on to, the way she often did when she was out on the town these days. She’d fancied Pete—or was it Dave?—more, but Jade had copped off with him, so she was sitting here with the leftovers.

The pub was open till midnight and had become busier than ever in the last half-hour. The punters were young enough to make her feel old, and most looked more successful than she’d ever be. Not just wealthier—though they were probably that—but more settled, more relaxed, with partners or groups of friends. Like they might have real homes to go back to.

That was one reason she hated coming into Manchester. She preferred just hanging around her local in Brinnington. It didn’t have much to recommend it, but it was friendly and the clientele was old enough to make her feel like a teenager. She knew a few people—not exactly friends, but people she could spend an evening getting pissed with. Most of them were in the same boat, one way or another. Divorced, unmarried, or saddoes who’d never had a real relationship in their lives. Some had kids they wanted to get away from, some just had empty bedsits they didn’t want to go back to. Most, unlike Jo, were locals who’d spent their lives in this nondescript suburb. She could understand pretty much everything else, but not that. Why would you want to stay there? For that matter, why would you want to stay anywhere without a good reason?

‘Go on,’ Dave said. She was pretty sure this one was Dave. ‘Just a bit longer. Have another drink.’ He was a brickie, she thought, or a plasterer. Something like that. He’d told her earlier. They were southerners—real southerners, that was, from Surrey or Sussex or somewhere, up here working on a job. She’d thought all southerners were rolling in money, and there were jobs down there for the asking. Dave had said no, it wasn’t like that, not any more. ‘First it was the recession, then it was the bloody immigrants. Bloody Poles and Czechs and Romanians, undercutting us and taking all the work—’ He’d stopped, conscious of the way she was looking at him. She didn’t like that talk. People should be able to go where they liked, work where they wanted, that was what she thought. If the likes of Dave weren’t good enough to compete, well, that was their tough luck, wasn’t it?

‘Anyway,’ Dave had gone on, ‘if you want to make decent money, you’ve got to go where the work is, haven’t you? That’s why we’re up here. Loads of new builds, and we can get a good rate. I mean, that must be why you’re down here, isn’t it?’ He didn’t appear to see any contradiction between this and what he’d been saying about immigrants, but Jo couldn’t be bothered to point it out. She knew Dave’s type well enough. If he was working up here, it was because no-one down south would have him.

Dave and his mates had latched on to her and Jade as soon as they’d walked in the pub. It had been all right at first—they were a lively enough bunch—but as the evening wore on most of them had peeled off for one reason or other, mostly in pursuit of another bunch of females. Now she was sitting here, in this noisy pub, stuck with builder Dave and his fascinating array of small-talk. Once he’d got beyond ‘fucking Mancs’ and ‘fucking Scousers’, along with a related set of negative views about the local football clubs, there wasn’t a lot left.

‘Just one more,’ he insisted again. ‘What can I get you?’

She shook her head. ‘Really can’t—’ She’d almost called him Dave, but she still wasn’t sure this actually was Dave, so she hurried on. ‘Need to go now so I can get the last train.’

‘Can’t be time for the last train yet. Just another glass of wine.’

Jo shook her head, more insistently this time. ‘I’ve got to walk up to Piccadilly,’ she said. ‘I’ll be OK if I go now, but I’ll only just make it.’

‘What about your mate there?’ Dave pointed out. ‘She doesn’t look like she’s ready to leave.’

‘She looks like she’s ready for something,’ Jo said. ‘I’m sure I can leave her in your friend’s safe hands.’

‘Look, just stay a bit longer. Tell me about yourself.’ This was a desperate ploy. Dave had shown no previous interest in finding out anything about her.

She shrugged. ‘I’m from Scotland. It’s a dump. That’s why I left. All you need to know.’ She pushed herself to her feet. ‘And now I’m going. Been nice to meet you, Dave. Till the next time.’ She grabbed her coat and, with an unacknowledged wave in Jade’s direction, stumbled towards the door. Behind her, she heard: ‘For Christ’s sake, I’m Pete. That’s Dave. Stupid fucking cow—’ but she was already out of the door and into the chill night air.

It was supposed to be summer, but the last few days had offered nothing but heavy cloud and showers. Tonight, while she’d been in the pub, a fine drizzle had set in. She was hardly dressed for a wet night, but she’d lived in Manchester long enough to come prepared. She fumbled in her shoulder-bag for her foldaway umbrella, then, brandishing it in front of her to keep off the worst of the rain, she began to make her way back through to Portland Street.

The damp air had partially sobered her up, and all she wanted now was to reach the shelter of the station. She always found the layout of the city centre confusing, and it took her a few seconds to work out which way to turn at the next junction. Despite the rain, the streets were busy with revellers, many of them even drunker than Jo.

She was walking past the southern edge of Chinatown, the ornate archway looming to her left, when she heard the voice calling. ‘Jo? It is Jo, isn’t it?’

She turned, startled, assuming the speaker was calling to some other Jo in the street behind her. There was a figure in a heavy-looking anorak, head bowed against the drizzle, peering at her. ‘Christ, it is you, isn’t it? How about that?’

Baffled, Jo took another step towards the figure. ‘Sorry, pal. I think you must have the wrong person—’

The figure suddenly threw back the hood. ‘Jo, it’s me. Don’t you remember? I mean, what are the chances?’

It took her a few seconds. The figure was partially silhouetted against the smeared neon of the rows of Chinese restaurants. The face was a little older and not a face she’d ever have expected to see here. But there was no doubt.

‘Jesus,’ Jo said, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’

‘It’s a long story. You in a hurry?’

Jo glanced at her watch. ‘I’m heading home. Last train. Shit, I’m already cutting it fine.’

‘We should catch up. Look, do you want a lift? I’m parked just round the corner.’

‘To the station? That would be great.’ She could feel the cold rain dripping down her neck.

‘No problem. We can arrange to meet up properly sometime. Have a good catch-up.’

‘You living down here, then?’ She followed the hunched figure down one of the side-streets, past vehicles parked on ignored double-yellows.

‘Another long story, but I’m around for a couple of weeks, so, yeah, let’s get together. This is me.’ It was a battered-looking van. ‘A bit clapped out, but it should get us up to Piccadilly safe and sound.’

‘Better than walking.’ Jo pulled open the passenger door and climbed inside. The interior of the van was a bit of a mess—empty Coke bottles, discarded parking tickets—but at least it was dry.

‘Seat belt’s a bit dodgy. Here, let me—’ The hand reached into the van as if to pull on the seat belt. Then, unexpectedly, it was in front of her face, and she was trying to identify the piercing scent burning the back of her throat.

The wet cloth was clamped across her mouth, and she realised she was struggling to breathe. She kicked out furiously, trying to free herself from the confined space of the van, but the hand pressed more firmly. She felt dizziness, the throbbing of a headache behind her eyes, a burning on her skin, the taste of raw acid. She clutched at the wrist pressing hard against her mouth, desperately trying to loosen its pressure. But she was already losing control of her senses, the evening’s alcohol combining with whatever she was inhaling. Her grip loosening, she looked up, terrified, to see that familiar face looming down towards her. It seemed to remain there for long minutes, staring down at her. And then, almost as a relief, she felt and saw nothing more.

Two minutes later, the van pulled out, completed a rapid U-turn, and wound its way through the one-way system towards Salford and the motorway.

6

‘So what do we know now?’ Helena Grant said. She wasn’t keen on inviting McKay to her office because he tended to wander round the room, poking his nose into files that were none of his business and sniffing disapprovingly at what he found there. She knew he did it only to wind her up, but that didn’t stop her being wound up. On the whole, it was easier to deal with McKay on his own territory, but she had the comms team on her back wanting a line on the Clootie Well killing, as the local media had inevitably dubbed it.

‘A few things,’ McKay said. ‘We’ve got the path report. Seems there’s evidence of poisoning by inhalation. Good old fashioned chloroform, would you believe?’

‘I thought chloroform didn’t work,’ Grant said. ‘All those old whodunits where the villain holds a handkerchief to the victim’s mouth and the poor wee thing drifts off into la-la land.’

‘According to Doc Green, it certainly doesn’t work like that,’ McKay said. Dr Jacquie Green was the senior forensic pathologist the local force used for its post-mortems. ‘Bloody nasty stuff. You’re more likely to kill the victim than just knock them out. Liver damage, the lot.’

‘And in this case?’

‘She thinks the dosage might have been fatal in itself. But looks like the killer also made a point of suffocating the presumably unconscious victim, just to make sure. Kept the chloroform-soaked cloth, or whatever it was, pressed over the poor lassie’s mouth for as long as it took. There’s burning to the skin around the mouth. Jockie Henderson missed that.’ The last said with some degree of satisfaction.

‘So what’s this telling us?’

‘We’re dealing with a killer. Chloroform suggests pre-meditation and serious intent. If the aim was just to render the victim unconscious, there are easier and less risky ways of doing that.’

‘What else do we have?’

‘Doc reckons the body had been in the ground for maybe four or five days before it was found. Death probably occurred within the forty-eight hours before that. So the time of death in within the last week or so. She can’t be much more precise than that. The body was moved after death, but that doesn’t tell us much, given we know she wasn’t killed where she was found. Could have been moved one mile or several hundred.’

‘No ID yet?’ Grant asked.

‘Not yet. There are no recent local missing persons that fit the bill. We identified a couple of other recent possibles in Scotland, but neither panned out. There are a few other UK cases we’re following up, but nothing very promising. We’re still waiting on fingerprints and DNA.’

‘What about the flowers and candles?’

‘Nothing much. None of the local florists has any recollection of any unusual purchases, so it looks like they were just bought piecemeal from supermarkets and the like, as we thought. The vases are a bog-standard cheap model sold by various garden centres and DIY stores. Same with the candles and candlesticks.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ McKay said, gloomily. ‘We’ve considered the tattoos, but again they’re just standard off-the-shelf designs. We’ve checked with a couple of the local tattoo parlours and they reckon they could have been done anywhere. There’s nothing traceable.’

‘OK,’ Grant said, ‘so where from here?’

‘If the DNA and fingerprints can’t help us, I reckon we need a media appeal. Unless we know who the victim is, we can’t make much progress.’

‘The other question,’ Grant said, ‘is why the Clootie Well. Did it have some significance? And if the killer’s not local, how did they know about it?’

‘That place attracts nutters,’ McKay said, ‘like crap attracts journalists. But, aye, you’re right. The place isn’t exactly world famous. Suggests some local knowledge. But could just be someone who’s been up here on holiday. I’ve heard tell there are people who do that.’

‘OK, I’ll agree some sort of holding line with comms. There’s a lot of media interest in this, so we need to give them something soon. Let’s hope we can get an ID.’

McKay nodded. ‘Aye. Ideally one that means we can throw the whole case in some other bastard’s direction.’

‘You don’t fool me, McKay,’ Grant said. ‘That’s the last bloody thing you want.’

* * *

Ginny Horton slowed to a halt and took a deep breath. Not bad, she thought. A good five miles at a decent pace, and she was barely short of breath. She was never going to break any speed records, but she had the endurance and tenacity to keep going for as long as it took. Story of her life, really. Lately, she’d been upping the pace on these shorter runs. At first, she’d been surprised by how much it took out of her. Now, after a few months’ practice, she was getting to the point where she could combine speed and a reasonable distance without undue effort.

It was a glorious early summer’s evening, the sky clear, the waters of the Moray Firth a rare deep blue. She had no great expectations of the weather up here, which seemed to operate to its own, unique meteorological laws, but she tried to make the most of whatever decent weather they did get. Last summer hadn’t been too bad. Maybe they’d be lucky again.

She walked over to one of the benches on the shoreline, and sat down to watch the play of the water on the rocks below. She’d been adamant, when they’d decided to move up here, that she wanted to live near the sea. They’d ended up here in Ardersier on the southern side of the Moray Firth. It was convenient for them both in terms of getting into Inverness, and handy for the airport when Isla had to make one of her frequent work trips south. It was a pretty enough little village with its mix of stone and white-rendered cottages. Their own house was small but comfortable, exactly the kind of place that Ginny had dreamed of living during her painful adolescence in red-brick Surrey suburbia.

Best of all, she could enjoy this regular run along the waterside between the village and the army barracks at Fort George. Fort George was typical of this place, she thought. A fortification built in the eighteenth century to strengthen control of the Highlands after the Jacobite rising, but still a working army barracks. She would run alongside the towering orange stonework, marvelling at its sheer presence in the landscape.

The evening was mild rather than warm, and the sweat on her body was beginning to cool her as she sat gazing out across the calm waters. Across the firth, she could see the southern edge of the Black Isle, the linked villages of Fortrose and Rosemarkie, the jutting tip of Chanonry Point. It wasn’t unusual to see dolphins playing around the point, sometimes close to this shore, but she could see no sign of them today.

Time like this helped her clear her mind. She was happy to work whatever hours the job needed, but she wasn’t one to bring her work home. At some point in the drive along the A96 from Inverness, she’d flick a mental switch and put it behind her, preparing for her evening with Isla.

But sometimes while she was running, her conscious mind virtually in neutral, she had ideas and insights that would never have come to her otherwise. Tonight, as she’d pounded along the shoreline, her thoughts had drifted unbidden to the Black Isle across the water and to the case

Reviews for The Inspector McKay Series Books One to Three

[Malcolm Turner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

These pages are filled with believable events that are easy to follow. My wife comes from Cromarty, so the locations simply fitted together as they should. We'll written. good read.

[Alistair Wood · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The author of this series is Alex Walters, as it says on the cover. Where Bette Bao Lord appeared from I have no idea.